sympathetic and clear presentation by Dr. Curry, many of the greatest poems of the master glow with new meaning. The work is divided into two parts, the first dealing with "The Monologue as a Dramatic Form," the second with "Dramatic Rendering of the Monologue." All Professor Curry's works possess a double value: they are scientific and fundamental in character, and they are presented in so fascinating a manner and with such sincerity and enthusiasm that the work instantly grips the reader's interest and holds him under its spell. VI. SNOW ON THE BROW, YOUTH IN THE In an admirable sketch of Dr. Curry and his work, written by Professor Shailer Matthews and published in a recent issue of The World To-day, the writer says: "Dr. Curry is essentially a man of temperament. It is a mystery how he has managed to survive thirty years of instruction." To us there is no mystery in this. The secret lies in the idealism that dominates his life. He drinks from the spiritual fountains and enjoys perennial youth. True, the silver flecks beard and brow, but the child-heart sings the song of youth even clearer, stronger and sweeter than in early days, before the dream had actualized or the hope ripened into partial fruition. Here we find the joy, hope and enthusiasm of the boy companioned by that living faith that makes faithful. Advancing years sit lightly on his brow, for he possesses the poet's heart, the artist's rich imagination. With Victor Hugo he can say, "Winter is on my head, and eternal spring is in my heart.” But, indeed, no one could better express the faith and mental attitude that explain his youth of spirit than has Professor Curry in these lines, written some time ago: "Youth is a state of mind and not of years; Hope heeds nor Spring nor Fall. Though sun be low, the heart see dawning day, Not ours to know who will the battle win; What matter whom we miss upon the field? B. O. FLOWER. Boston, Massachusetts. BROWNING'S "CALIBAN" AND "SAUL." BY PROFESSOR S. S. CURRY, A.M., PH.D. PERHAPS the highest struggle of the and "Saul," afford a decided contrast human mind is the instinctive effort to form a conception of Deity. The conception of the nature and character of the Supreme Being differs in all men. This conception perhaps more than any other forms a perfect mirror of man's degree of elevation, on the one hand, or of his degradation on the other. Even in the growth of the individual the conception of Deity changes with the development of his faculties. Two poems by Browning, "Caliban " between the conceptions of Deity on the part of the speakers. Is this contrast unconscious with Browning? Or did he intentionally place the two poems side by side in the first volume of selections which he himself arranged from his poems? Did he not try to suggest here a definite antithesis between the characters in these monologues? To me, at any rate, a special lesson results from contrasting these two poems, one with the views of the very lowest of char acters and the other the inspirations of one of the highest. Many think that in "Caliban" Browning merely gratified his love of the grotesque and horrible, that he portrays here a kind of missing link which was suggested by Caliban in Shakespeare's "Tempest," but which has no kinship to the character invented by Shakespeare. To me Browning had a deep meaning in everything he wrote. In all his poems he reveals his conception of the deeper meaning of life. He had what Matthew Arnold regards as necessary to every great poet, a "philosophy of life." He interprets some of the deepest characteristics of human beings, and among his profound suggestions to me he throws light upon the actions of the human mind in conceiving and realizing a Supreme Being. "Caliban Upon Setebos" has a subtitle, "Or Natural Theology in the Island," and a text from the fiftieth Psalm, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." These indicate that Browning, though creating a most grotesque situation and character, with an almost horrible humor, had yet a more serious aim than many realize. Caliban is represented, while "Prospero and Miranda " are asleep, as crawling into a cool puddle and lying "in the pit's mire," while he "kicks both feet in the cool slush" and the "small eft things" run over his back and "make him laugh." In this most enjoyable situation Caliban "talks to his own self" as he pleases about "that other, whom his dam called God." Caliban's degraded nature is indicated by the fact that he does not rise to the dignity of the pronoun "I." The use of this personal pronoun indicates selfconsciousness, self-assertion, and a certain degree of self-affirmation and realization to which Caliban has not yet reached. His verbs are impersonal-"Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.' Here we find one of the deep insights of Browning and his knowledge of the human heart and the daring of his poetic phrasing in which he even shakes the conventions of grammar. Caliban in his beloved resting-place and environment proceeds to have a good "think." He locates Setebos, conceives his character, and achievements. Setebos has made the moon "with the sun to match," but the "stars came otherwise." He made clouds, the "snaky sea," from "being ill at ease," created them "in spite," in fact, "did in envy, listlessness or sport," "Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be." Caliban regards Him as being like to himself watching yonder crabs that go from the mountain to the sea. He lets twenty of them pass and stones the twenty-first, "loving not, hating not, just choosing so." Thus like all of us Caliban reasons by analogy and arranges to his own satisfaction his system of theology: "so He." This reasoning from analogy does not indicate that Browning is throwing any slur upon this method of reasoning. The island may be the world and the theology may be "natural" to us all in a certain stage of our development. But Browning does not mean to disparage logic and scientific endeavors ог the universal instinct of the human mind to find and to realize the truth regarding the nature of Deity. Notice that Browning chooses to indicate the degraded character of Caliban by revealing the actions of his mind in thinking about God. Thinking on a subject shows degradation or exaltation. Caliban has fallen low; he feels but little regarding the possibilities of a human being. He has little or no aspiration upward, and hence his notion of Deity must lie in the direction of his desires or aspirations or wishes. "Man must walk in the direction he is looking," and in that direction he must necessarily locate Deity. Only at the heart of his desires, his longings, his aspirations, can man find his conception of the character of Deity. Deity can never be found by the telescope or the microscope, be seen by eye or heard by ear. He can only be found through that private door through which only Deity can find an entrance into every soul. Even the degraded Caliban seems dissatisfied with his own conceptions and feels that over Setebos is something that made him-the "Quiet." This "Quiet" Caliban hopes will some time conquer Setebos. In the midst of Caliban's communings a storm comes up and he whines and pretends great submission. "Fool to gibe at Him! Lo! Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! Such horrible reasoning marks a degraded character with his face looking downward, thinking necessarily downward, creating a Deity that seems to us monstrous. But Caliban's mind acts naturally. As with all of us he can conceive Deity only in the direction of his own ideals and aims. Losing the upward aspirations he must necessarily place God low. He himself, full of hate and envy, ill-tempered, antagonistic toward everything, swallowed up in the negative, must necessarily conceive such a negative Being back of all he sees. Side by side, immediately following "Caliban," place "Saul" as Browning in his selections has placed the poems. "Saul" is founded upon the Scripture statement that David played before Saul to drive away from him "the evil spirit." The poem portrays David as thinking, recalling to himself, alone with his sheep, the experiences that had come to him the night before as he played before the king. The poem consists mainly in David's experiences, in his endeavors to aid Saul. Is not Saul humanity, the great dark tent the world, and the little David a type of every artist or every worker who tries to help his fellow-man? David began as all must begin-with his first child-like demonstrations and experiences, the "song all our sheep know." Then David goes through the whole of his life's experiences, singing and playing song after song till he catches his first response a groan. Later, he conceives a great love in his desire to help the king, finds himself between his great knees, drops harp and song and with his own direct words and tones and actions, with expression in its primitive fulness, in those first modes which lie at the basis of all expression, the truth came upon David, and we have the sublimest conceptions of the meaning of life to be found in any poem in the nineteenth century. David was troubled and gradually rose on the wings of his own endeavor and love, his own ideals and efforts, to aid and out of the depths there came to him a realization of the highest truth. Do we not find here a direct contrast to "Caliban"? Out of Caliban's sluggish and sensual inactivity, out of his degraded envies and hates, he creates God. David, out of the heart of his aspirations and ideals, the dreams that he had had "alone with his sheep," at last, out of his own love and desire to help this man, rises to the sublime heights, and dares to conceive a Deity that transcends, in his own highest conception, his own love and goodness. James Martineau somewhere has stated that if we accept as our conception of Deity anything lower than the highest possible reach of our imagination and spiritual nature, we violate the First Commandment. Deity is not Deity unless supreme. less supreme. We are placing some other god before Him if we can ourselves conceive of something better than we believe possible to Him. Most people regard mere external facts, mere things, as the real; but every hour through all the world the inner life is transforming and changing things. The tree puts forth its leaf and bud. The whole face of nature is changing. The man who regards his body as himself is on a low plane. For every particle of his body has changed many times during the course of his life. A bruise on the finger-nail will grow out and be gone in a few weeks. Parts of the body, such as the bones, may change slowly, but other parts change every few days. There is something deeper than body which is the real man, which preserves his identity, builds and unbuilds every instant the physical structure. Only an aspiration, only in man's ideal, does man find the highest heights of life. "It is not what man does but what man would do that exalts him." He who is not actualizing his ideals in his work, who does not, like little David in his endeavors, find his joy and his strength and feel the light of truth coming to him from above is not really living. He who does not send out his nature to conceive of the highest reaches of possibility in his own being will never find God. It is in the depths of man's own nature, in the midst of the problem of demonstrating, of realizing and revealing that we find the Source of the best. Thus, only can we find the "central peace that exists at the heart of this agitation." On the lower plane man's higher faculties will sleep; only on the higher plane of aspiration and endeavor do they become awake. God cannot be conceived by the senses. Eye has not seen nor ear heard His voice. Have you ever pondered the meaning of this peculiar poem by the poet Russell, who signs his name "A. E."? "Oh, at the eagle's height, To lie in the sweet of the sun, "Oh, the night on the steep! All that his eyes saw dim And God is alone with him." This poem means something different to me nearly every time I read it. At this moment it comes to me as an illustration of a deep contrast. The first four lines refer to day, the second four to night. But this is comparatively nothing. When we are using our mere senses we are taken up with things; the imagination sees "A deep below the deep And a height above the height; When we use our senses God and the world are outside of us. When we use our higher natures, transcend our senses, we find God in the depths of our own beings. All our senses "saw dim grow light"; we are no longer at the surface but at the center and catch a glimpse of the unity of life. On the height the glow of noon-day becomes transfigured, glorified. When night comes and sets free the imagination all grows more beautiful and sublime. Russell uses this experience to illustrate a still higher phase of spiritual vision. The little David in going the "whole round of creation" in rising from his simplest and earliest song to the expression of his most exalted vision grows by his endeavor and aspiration until he becomes awake to the truth. Men sneer at dreams and ideals. Ours calls itself a practical age, a scientific age. It is true that an idle dreamer is useless; but, on the other hand, a dreamless worker is a drudge. The true artist, the true worker, the man who fulfills the intentions of his nature, both dreams and works. He not only has an ideal of the highest good possible, but he labors to express it. Art is necessary to the higher spiritual development of man. Caliban can never be lifted from his puddle and made to stand with shining face and throbbing heart before the great Saul, without the harp and the song. Caliban's low conceptions of Deity can never be corrected without the awakening of his ideals and his imagination and his feelings. Even the books which are given to study as a task have less influence over the development of character than a mere book, even though not of a high classic type, which is enjoyed. Every phase of art must express the spontaneous energies of a human being (must express the spontaneous energies), must express the fact that a 'man's reach must exceed his grasp. Even the right conception of Deity, even a right belief, is dependent upon the artistic nature as well as the spiritual For example, a man's belief must lie in the direction of his needs, or he will never advance out of any low condition. In every case it is our belief in something higher and better that lifts us upward; a belief in more beautiful and ideal conditions, a belief in the transforming powers of our own nature, a belief in an ideal, centers so much in scientific knowledge but in the possi bility of transforming conditions, transforming crude materials into objects of art. This is a necessary stage, a necessary helper to the higher spiritual conceptions of ideals regarding character. The little David before Saul as portrayed by Browning suggests to us the seriousness of art. The one who recognizes the little David as the typical artist, the fact that he had to adopt art to face the gloomy Saul and to awaken the least response, to one who recognizes that art is ever a twin-sister but not a servant of science, even of religion, we can at once recognize the entire lack of art in the education of our country. S. S. CURRY. Boston, Massachusetts. FOLI BY VICTORE.MARTINETE OLLOWING the wave of moral indignation which attended the recent exposures of wholesale corruption in high places, the fervent hope has been entertained by thousands that a Democratic administration, headed by Hon. W. J. Bryan, might succeed the present one, and inaugurate an era of better things. But it has been recognized that if the Democratic orators would point effectively to the Platts, Aldriches, Depews and Penroses of the opposition, their own party must not be open to the same condemnation. In view of this fact, the battle between Senator Joseph W. Bailey, on the one hand, and the friends in Texas of honest public service, on the other-which culminated in a special primary election May second-has been watched with interest. The occasion for a trial of strength was afforded in the election of delegatesat-large to the Denver convention, Senator Bailey heading one of the tickets. The consequences to the state of Texas, aside from the effect on the national campaign, and from Bailey's stealthy influence at Washington, are far-reaching. The regular primary election occurs July twenty-fifth, and certain of the stakes in the present contest will not have been won until that date. The Attorney-General, by reason of his successful prosecution of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company and incidental exposure of Bailey, has incurred the active hostility of the Senator and of his patron. Senator Bailey has put forward in opposition to Attorney-General Davidson's reëlection the same candidate with whom he succeeded in defeating for the governorship the Attorney-General, M. M. Crane, who ousted the oil corporation from Texas in 1900. So that the people of the Lone Star State are having to choose between law-enforcement and an untrammeled public service, on the one side, and, on the other, an endorsement |